Radio By the Numbers

Not too long ago, we had a guest speaker in the Radio class I help teach, a program director for a local radio station. He told us about the PPMs (Personal People Meters), the new way of measuring radio audiences. He said that the PPM numbers have proven that "nobody cares when you talk about your personal life".

No offense to this guy, but... what a load of bull.

There are plenty of success stories in radio that prove that people can be measured constantly on what they are listening and they still enjoy connecting with on-air personalities who are relatable. The problem today is twofold: 1) The radio industry does not give us much chance to establish a connection with relatable personalities anymore, and 2) Institutions everywhere (not just radio) rely WAY too much on statistics. They have all but forgotten the human element. Loyalty is not always measured in cold statistics. Much as social scientists try to measure emotional or affective responses, it's not the easiest thing in the world to do, is often unreliable, and let's face it, when you really like something, when you really feel a connection with something, can you really measure it in numbers?

Let me backtrack for a moment and explain exactly what the PPMs are. For decades, radio ratings were measured by giving listeners diaries and asking them to write down the stations they listened to over a one-week period. It wasn't the most reliable method in the world... listeners often wrote down what they could remember, not necessarily what they were listening to at the exact moment. The ratings companies could not rely on people sending the diaries back, either, and the meager compensation wasn't much of an incentive. By upgrading to the PPM, radio listening approaches the standard used by Nielsen with their TV set-top boxes that have recorded viewing instantly for decades. The PPM device is a pager-like thing that selected panelists wear and keep with them at all times. All radio stations put a code out with their signal, one that the PPM reads and translates into data. The end result? Any time you are within earshot of a radio (even if it's not necessarily yours), the PPM will record that you were "listening" to the station to which the radio is tuned.

What the PPM gains for radio in efficiency, however, it loses in other ways. For one thing, a typical listener of a well-liked on-air personality might change the station if he goes to commercials or puts on a song the listener doesn't like. Yes, he/she will switch back, but whereas that person might have previously written that the well-liked DJ was the only one he/she listened to, now it shows up in the PPM data as listening to said DJ for a shorter time, then flipping around. When ratings change like this, number-crunching managers want to start looking at EXACTLY what caused the change. And they can do just that... they have access to the PPM data not just shift by shift or hour by hour, but literally MINUTE BY MINUTE. Talk about a godsend for micro-managers. I'm sure this doesn't drive on-air personalities crazy at all.

The PPM numbers are just another way that people are overusing statistics to try to claim that they can control and micromanage their way to success. If the PPM numbers drop when someone says, "My kids did something silly yesterday," it does not necessarily mean that they will drop EVERY TIME the person on-air talks about his/her kids. But try telling that to someone who is under massive amounts of pressure to keep the numbers up so that they can keep sales numbers up so that the massive corporate owners can avert bankruptcy for another week. Just because you HAVE all this statistical data, it doesn't necessarily mean you should USE it. Industry, economists, climatologists, government... all pour money into getting all the statistical data they can overuse, and then some. And then what do they wind up doing with it? They spin it. And perhaps it was "spin" we were hearing from this program director, who wants us to listen to his station that is less reliant on engaging personalities that foster connections with the audience, and therefore wants us to believe that the PPMs say nobody cares when "Preston & Steve" or some other similar morning team talks about their personal lives.

All I know is that the PPMs have given corporate owners a new reason to further purge personality out of radio, using this line of BS as their excuse. Of course, the real reason is they are slashing payroll in order to please corporate types who have no idea how radio is supposed to work, or have maybe gotten so out of touch that they forgot (*cough* Bob Pittman *cough*). But when you have all this data you can spin, it's awfully handy.

Let's go back to my earlier question: When you feel a connection with an on-air personality, can that connection be expressed in raw statistics? It is possible, but it's not as readily convenient as just strapping a meter to someone and reading the results. You could measure coorientation between listener and personality, tracking the degree to which they both lock in on relatable topics... but it's not a proven method. I would love for station management to see the devotion of a station or personality's audience, the way they show up for live appearances and respond to calls for action, whether political, charitable, or just plain silly. But those things can only be observed and not measured, and when you have all these numbers, well, it's just so much easier to go to the statistics.

This is the same philosophy that results in people like Frank Luntz using perception analyzers to isolate what works about a politician's message... right down to specific words. I've actually used the perception analyzers in research... they're the dials that people use, sitting in focus groups, turning the dials to one side if they like something, the other way if they don't. That is the extreme of reliance on numbers. I certainly fancy myself as more of a qualitative researcher than one who goes the quantitative, statistical route, but I see the importance of using quantifiable concepts. However, I think radio should leave the social science to the social scientists, and take the ratings the way we always did... weekly/monthly/quarterly. And combine the ratings with good old-fashioned gut. That's really what it comes down to: management plays it too safe now, and with the hard numbers to point to (and spin), one needs not fear the ill results that may come from a gut decision. But when you use your gut, you actually have to understand the audience's needs and wants, not just what time or what word coincided with the push of a preset button.

God forbid we get to the point where radio personalities' careers are decided by a focus group full of people with dials...